Before you can ever think about embarking on a major trip of this nature, you need get out a pencil, some paper and enough beer to kill an elephant, and put down everything that needs to be addressed for the expedition to be considered a success. Our first attempt at this was nothing more than a list of where we wanted to fish. We immediately realized that we needed to do more research on how an expedition is planned out, so we spent countless hours of research on the Internet, and came up with a more expanded list of places to fish, including some great remote areas none of us had heard about.
I just want to point out that none of us are trustafarians, we’re you’re typical broke fishing bums that know if we can find a project someone might want to support monetarily, we can get a free ride to fish. Unfortunately, product manufacturers have become hip to the sponger/angler game, so raising enough sponsorship to pull off this trip was a multi-month ordeal that we wouldn’t swear on our worst dinnertime phone ringing telemarketer.
Several members tried to bail during the sponsor solicitation period, but we were usually able to placate their concerns with copious amounts of beer and mostly true fishing stories. Then a funny thing happened: corporate sponsors started falling for our pitch, followed by products (and the occasional check) showing up at our doors.
Next up was to figure out how we were going to get from Jay’s house in Portland, Oregon to Mexico, across the country’s rough terrain and less traveled roads, and then back to Oregon, hopefully with all our gear and minimal delays for jail time, breakdowns, armed robberies and bathroom stops. Once we learned that tequila refineries don’t do sample tours, our path of travel was mapped out and it became pretty obvious that we were going to need a beast of a truck.
The Truck Purchase
Did I mention that we don’t have any money? We’re also young, like to fish, eat and visit the occasional adult beverage container, so if we were going to be on a tight budget as it is, where were we going to get the extra money we’d need for fun? The obvious answer was to eliminate some of the costs associated with the trip, and with the gas the greatest expense, we quickly schemed a way to knock that expenditure off the list—we’d get the citizens of Mexico to sponsor our fuel bill. Well, sort of. We’d convert the truck to run on vegetable oil, and then swipe it from the disposal sites behind restaurants as we went.
First, we needed the perfect truck for the job, one we could turn into a house at will. After researching vegetable oil conversions we knew we needed a diesel rig, preferably with a crew cab so no one had to spend two months crossing Mexico in the Sweet Seat. Brian scavenged through vehicle listings in Florida, Thad in Utah, while Jay and I tackled the North Western US. We spent weeks surfing Craigslist trying to find a vehicle for the expedition. After a while it started to get frustrating because trucks were constantly being sold out from underneath us, and with only two weeks until our predetermined departure date, the pressure to pull the trigger was building.
Then Thad gave notice that he’d found a rig in Salt Lake City that might work, so with the offer of a road trip and multiple stops for fish population research, we jumped on it. Hours later, we purchased a 1996 Ford F250 Crew Cab diesel truck from a Utah diary farmer by the name of Cooter. Looking back on the decision, I really can’t explain why we would buy a truck from someone who delivered it to us on a trailer and if the asking price of $5000 might be a sign that the truck had seen some blacktop.
Next, we purchased a used canopy with locking storage compartments on the side, then bought a construction lumber rack to haul the boats on. It was actually a flawless, yet compact design that would yield maximum storage capacity while making the entire rig look like the country went bankrupt and we were the first of the sketchy youth migration heading for Central America.
Our biggest mistake was turning on the television. Headline News was touting the recent Mexican cartel activity–beheadings, murders and gang violence along the border, which was right in the areas we needed to pass through, so we all started to get cold feet. Then our friends starting wearing on us. ‘Don’t ask the federales to show you their badges,” they said, because your answer every time is going to be, “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!”
We were starting to stress the safety issue when Brian flew in from Florida and Thad had just driven the truck up from Salt Lake City, so we were all in the same location, with the planned departure date just days away. We’d already spent a bunch of the sponsorship money on the truck and fly tying supplies, so we were locked in and felt like we had to commit, lest Moose and Rocco show up at the door offering to help us find our checkbook.
One morning we awoke to the beeping sound of a large semi truck dumping two Gheenoes micro skiffs that we had sponsored for the trip in the middle of the street. Carbon Marine sponsored elevated carbon casting platforms and push poles, which we adapted to the Gheenoe’s, allowing them to operate like ultralight two man cartop flats boats. Days later we bought a pair of used 9.9 Yamaha motors off Craigslist, so with all the vehicles prepped and supplies stocked, we couldn’t come up with a valid reason not to head south.
In the weeks leading up to the trip, we were on a first name basis with the UPS and Fed Ex delivery crew. The mountain of boxes inside the living room started to overflow from the living room onto the front porch. Camera equipment, power inverters, fly lines, spear guns, and ARB vehicle recovery gear was spread to every corner of the house.
The preparation for a multi month filming expedition is never ending. The first stage of organizing is making sure you have all the necessary production equipment in place to actually document the project. After the fallout with AEG buying new cameras, hard drives and lenses broke the bank. Our plan was to do most of our filming in remote locations for long durations of time. AC oulets to charge wasn’t an option so we prepared to operate of the grid utilizing solar panels and power inverters to fuel our computers, batteries and camera gear. When the last Pelican case was loaded we headed Joel Woolfs to have our Veg Conversion Done.
